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Angels
Angels and Airwaves is a project led by Blink-182 guitarist/vocalist Tom DeLonge, also including guitarist David Kennedy from Over My Dead Body, Hazen Street and Box Car Racer, bassist Matt Wachter from 30 Seconds to Mars and former Lostprophets and Nine Inch Nails drummer Ilan Rubin. Former original members are bass guitarist Ryan Sinn (formerly of The Distillers), who left the group in 2007 for still unclear reasons, as well as drummer Adam "Atom" Willard (formerly of The Offspring), who amicably parted ways with the band in fall 2011 after completion of their most recent album. The group has been described by Delonge as more than a band but more accurately "an art project approaches larger human themes and tackles them in different mediums", or simply "a multimedia project". This has been seen in the group's films, live events, and novel approach to fan-artist interaction. For the half-decade of the band's existence, they have established themselves as extremely prolific artists, having released four studio albums We Don't Need to Whisper (2006), I-Empire (2007) and Love (2010) and Love II (2011). The project also resulted in a documentary Start the Machine (2008). In 2011, the group released the sci-fi movie Love, accompanying the aforementioned albums and directed by William Eubank, in 460 theatres nationwide during their multimedia event, L☽∀E LIVE. Tom Delonge has said in an interview that the band is working on two new films with two studio albums. Influences and themes The group has been described by Delonge as more than a band but more accurately "an art project approaches larger human themes and tackles them in different mediums", or simply "a multimedia project". This has been seen in the group's films, live events, and novel approach to fan-artist interaction. On the first two albums, the band state that they are mainly influenced by the music of Radiohead and Pink Floyd, combining them with the grandiosity of U2. On the first album, Tom Delonge stated that the album would be "the best music in generations", but afterwards admitted that during this time he had addiction to painkillers. Love albums show further blending of the band's musical aspirations of epic and grandiosity and the cultural revolution in the digital era. Tom: "You can do anything you want in life, anything at all. If you have the slightest bit of risk and if you have the slightest bit of ambition, ... not only can you change the world around yourself, you might just change the world itself. This isn't about what is cool or not cool, what is punk or not punk. This is about not being an asshole and trying to do something better than yourself. I hear a lot of shit about rock bands pretending they're fucking angry, rock bands pretending they're fucking rebellious. I think, i'm gonna be an optimistic, and I think I'm gonna feel fucking good!" Music history Formation and origins: 2004-2005 Tom DeLonge began working on new material during Blink-182's final tour in 2004 and shortly after they began their hiatus in February 2005. For half a year he worked alone in his home studio before gathering musicians to form the band. Upon fiddling randomly for several weeks with the band's logo, Tom realized that if he were to invert the middle "A" of the band's acronym into what appeared to be a "V", he would have the name of his daughter, Ava. As rumors were floating around about the band's "break-up", DeLonge chose to abstain for half a year from any interviews surrounding the issue and his future plans; instead he concentrated on writing and recording in his home-based studio. In September 2005, he finally spoke publicly in Kerrang! magazine, where he unveiled the name of his new band, "Angels & Airwaves". The band included former Hazen Street guitarist and high-school friend David Kennedy, former Rocket from the Crypt drummer Adam Willard and former The Distillers bassist Ryan Sinn. Atom Willard told Shave Magazine that the experience of all the members of the band made the band formation very easy. "There’s nobody trying to figure out what is and what isn’t going to work, not just for themselves but for music and for a band, what life’s going to be like on the road and all that kind of stuff. Everybody had enough experience to just buckle down and do the work. It really has made it easier than anything else." First albums and artistic development: 2005-2009 Soon after forming, the band began recording their debut album in Tom's studio in California from mid 2005 to early 2006. However, after a fan e-mail hacked Tom and stole four demos, Angels & Airwaves had no other choice but to release "The Adventure" as their first single, which was leaked onto radio stations, causing a premature release on May 18, 2006. A few days later, they released their first album, We Don't Need to Whisper on May 23, 2006. The album reached 4th on the Billboard 200, and went gold in both the US and Canada. Contrary to this success, critics had generally mixed reviews, with one critic noting that “while well-intentioned band failed to reach the lofty heights to which they aspire,” especially in light of claims made by DeLonge that the album was “the best music made in decades.” Yet, later that year, popularity picked up with the release of singles "The War", "Do It For Me Now", and "It Hurts". The remainder of the year into 2007 consisted of tours, and in early 2007, the supergroup retreated to the studio to work on the follow-up. However, problems accumulated and on April 23, 2007, AVA announced that Ryan Sinn would not play at the Free Earth Day concert at the M.I.T. campus due to difficulties within the band. Following this incident, on May 15, Sinn posted on the Army of Angels fan club message board stating that he was "no longer a part of Angels & Airwaves," and had received a call on the evening of April 19 concluding his relationship with the band.5 Matt Wachter (former bassist of 30 Seconds to Mars), filled in for the show and was later confirmed as a permanent member. The new album, titled I-Empire and the first song "Everything's Magic" leaked to the internet, and on August 25, 2007 it was the most requested song on California radio station KROQ. Angels & Airwaves began streaming the song on their MySpace profile on August 28, 2007. It also became available on iTunes, and reached number three on the iTunes Rock Chart on September 11, 2007, before the song was even made available for nationwide airplay. The band shot the video for the single on January 20 and 21, and it premiered on MTV2 Unleashed on February 25, 2008. The band came out with a third single, "Breathe", that was released onto the internet June, 20. Angels and Airwaves performed at every location on Warped Tour 2008. They also underwent a Fall tour in support of Weezer. Multimedia projects: 2009-2011 The band took a break from performing in 2009 while Tom Delonge reunited with Blink-182 for a summer tour. During their time off, Atom Willard joined Social Distortion as their touring drummer, while Matt Wachter and David Kennedy began work on the upcoming film. When Delonge and Willard returned in the fall, the band resumed production of their next album. Love is the third studio album by Angels & Airwaves, which was officially released worldwide on February 14, 2010 after being delayed from Christmas 2009. Fuel TV also released it two days earlier for Modlife members, along with Mark Hoppus' remix of Hallucinations available to those who donated when downloading the album. The album was released free of charge due to "corporate underwriting". They began producing it in January 2009 but progress was slow due to Blink-182 reuniting and going on tour. The band finished the album in time for its release on Valentine's Day 2010. Love was downloaded nearly 500,000 times during the first 48 hours after its release day making it the most downloaded album in history. The first single from the album, "Hallucinations," was made available for free through the band's Modlife on December 23, 2009. The band have also released the video via Modlife on March 7, 2010. The band toured North America, starting March 27 in Anaheim, CA. The tour wrapped up on May 30 in Ventura, California, and Delonge returned to Blink-182 to prepare for their upcoming album and European tour. Delonge originally revealed that there will be another tour rumored to have UK dates after the release of the Love film in the autumn, but plans were changed due to Delonge's commitments with Blink-182. "Epic Holiday" is on the soundtrack to the German film Kokowääh with Til Schweiger. The second studio album Love II in the Love project will be released in November 11, 2011. Tom has described the album as better than the first part of Love and has also confirmed that there would be a box set with the two Love albums and a DVD of the movie. The first single to be released was, "Anxiety", and was premiered following L☽∀E LIVE on August 10, 2011. The music video for "Anxiety" was then released on YouTube on August 11, 2011. It was made available for purchase on iTunes on September 14, 2011. On October 18, 2011 Love II was leaked in its entirety on the Internet. Line-up change and future: 2011-present Before the release of Love II, Tom Delonge revealed that Angels & Airwaves had already begun working on two new albums and two corresponding films. On October 4th it was announced on their Facebook page that drummer Atom Willard departed from the band. The departure seemed to be a mutual understanding and Atom thanked the members of Angels & Airwaves for a great 6 years of making music together. Also on October 7th, it was announced that Angels & Airwaves would be part of the lineup for the Soundwave Festival in Australia, over the course of February through to March in 2012. It was revealed on October 20, 2011 that Ilan Rubin, famous for his work with Lostprophets and Nine Inch Nails, is the new drummer of the band. According to the band's website, the band will release an album to accompany an animated film called Poet Anderson. Angels & Airwaves's sound engineer, Jeff "Critter" Newell, who previously worked on all of their albums, as well as Blink-182's album, Neighborhoods died on December 31, 2011. In March 2012, it was announced that Angels and Airwaves would perform the 2012 Reading & Leeds Festivals in August 2012. The band also performed at the annual KROQ Weenie Roast concert on May 5, 2012. It has also been announced that the name of the other movie they have been working on is Strange Times, also the name of a website created by Tom Delonge. Other media Films Start the Machine is a documentary that focuses on the break-up of Blink-182, the genesis of Angels & Airwaves, and the making of their debut album We Don't Need to Whisper. It was released on DVD on June 17, 2008. Start the Machine was filmed over a course of almost 3 years. Love (formerly titled I-Empire) is a science fiction film directed by William Eubank and starring Gunner Wright that was released in a special event called L☽∀E LIVE on August 10, 2011. "It starts in the Civil War and you travel through time and space. There's a couple of different storylines. The main one is, a guy gets sent up to the International Space Station, and he gets abandoned up there. He doesn't know why. So throughout his years of being stuck up there, he sees the Earth starting to collapse below. He ends up basically becoming the last person alive. And then decades later, he wakes up one day and there's something outside of his spaceship, in low Earth orbit with him." Graphic art Band's albums has featured space rock images, with considerable influence by work of Storm Thorgerson as band-members explicitly state Pink Floyd influences in their work. The band has revealed that the Love album will be released as a double record with corresponding graphic novel. Band members ;Current members *Tom DeLonge – lead vocals, rhythm and lead guitar (2005–present); bass guitar (2014–2018) *David Kennedy – lead and rhythm guitar (2005–2014, 2018–present) *Ilan Rubin – drums, percussion (2011-present); keyboards, guitars, bass guitar (2014–present) ;Touring members Matthew Rubano – bass guitar, backing vocals (2019–present) ;Former members *Ryan Sinn – bass, backing vocals (2005–2007) *Adam "Atom" Willard – drums, percussion, programming (2005–2011) *Eddie Breckenridge – bass guitar (2014) *Matt Wachter – bass, synthesizers, backing vocals (2007–2014, 2018–2019) Timeline ImageSize = width:800 height:300 PlotArea = left:80 bottom:60 top:0 right:50 Alignbars = justify DateFormat = mm/dd/yyyy Period = from:01/01/2005 till:01/01/2020 TimeAxis = orientation:horizontal format:yyyy Colors = id:vocals value:red legend:Vocals/guitar id:nvocals value:pink id:guitar value:green legend:Guitar id:bass value:blue legend:Bass/synth id:drums value:orange legend:Drums id:Lines value:black legend:Studio albums Legend = orientation:horizontal position:bottom ScaleMajor = increment:1 start:2005 ScaleMinor = increment:1 start:2005 BarData = bar:Tom text:"Tom Delonge" bar:David text:"David Kennedy" bar:Ryan text:"Ryan Sinn" bar:Matt text:"Matt Wachter" bar:Adam text:"Adam Willard" bar:Ilan text:"Ilan Rubin" bar:Eddie text:"Eddie Breckenridge" PlotData= width:10 textcolor:black align:left anchor:from shift:(10,-4) bar:Tom from:01/01/2005 till:08/15/2005 color:nvocals bar:Tom from:08/15/2005 till:end color:vocals bar:David from:08/15/2005 till:11/11/2014 color:guitar bar:David from:04/18/2018 till:end color:guitar bar:Matt from:04/23/2007 till:06/23/2014 color:bass bar:Matt from:04/18/2018 till:04/26/2019 color:bass bar:Ryan from:08/15/2005 till:04/23/2007 color:bass bar:Adam from:08/15/2005 till:10/05/2011 color:drums at:11/06/2011 mark:(line,orange) at:11/11/2011 mark:(line,orange) at:11/15/2011 mark:(line,orange) bar:Ilan from:10/20/2011 till:end color:drums bar:Eddie from:06/23/2014 till:11/11/2014 color:bass at:11/06/2011 mark:(line,black) at:11/11/2011 mark:(line,black) at:11/15/2011 mark:(line,black) LineData = at:05/23/2006 color:black layer:back at:11/06/2007 color:black layer:back at:02/14/2010 color:black layer:back at:11/11/2011 color:black layer:back at:10/30/2014 color:black layer:back Adam Willard performs on the fourth album although he had left the band by the time of its release. Discography *''We Don't Need to Whisper'' (2006) *''I-Empire'' (2007) *''Love'' (2010) *''Love II'' (2011) Category:Angels & Airwaves Category:Blink-182 Side Project Category:Tom DeLonge Category:David Kennedy Category:Ryan Sinn Category:Matt Wachter Category:Ilan Rubin Category:Blink-182 Universe